Plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEV) and other electric vehicles (EV) include rechargeable batteries, or other energy storage device, that can be recharged by connecting a vehicle plug to an external power source, such as, for example, a home wall socket, electrical vehicle charging points or stations at residential and public locations, or other connections to the electrical grid. As the number of plug-in vehicles increases, the demand for public charging stations is also increasing. Some existing systems can help vehicle operators identify public charging stations within a specified range of the vehicle and may even provide navigational directions for locating the identified stations. However, in certain areas, there may be a shortage of charging spaces, and a vehicle operator may arrive at an identified charging station only to find all charging spaces occupied by other vehicles. In such cases, the vehicle operator has no recourse for finding out how much longer each vehicle will remain in their charging space and therefore, may need to seek out another charging station, or wait for an indeterminate period of time until a charging space becomes available.
Accordingly, there is still a need in the art for techniques that can help a vehicle operator identify available charging stations by determining not only the availability of public charging stations, but also the amount of charge time remaining for occupied charging spaces.